


Awkward Teenagers, Ugly Paranoia, and the Poem that Saved my Life: Things I Think About A Lot

by chocochurros



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Insecurity, Nonfiction, Personal Growth, Personal Narrative, Poetry, References to Depression, SUUSI, Self-Reflection, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12688002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocochurros/pseuds/chocochurros





	Awkward Teenagers, Ugly Paranoia, and the Poem that Saved my Life: Things I Think About A Lot

This is a story about a period of time where I was close to ending it all. This is a story about a time that I'm ashamed of; a time most of us have gone through at some point or another. This is a story about the poem that saved my life. And I'm the poet.

 

Every year, I go with my whole family to a summer camp for one week: SUUSI, the Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute, which recently relocated to North Carolina. It's the most amazing place in the world, a place where everyone is accepted, united, respected, respectful, and all just there to have fun. No drama, no unhappiness, ever; or that's what I used to think, anyway. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's still fantastic. I generally have a good time and there are people there who I never see anywhere else; but that can be nearly as much of a con as a pro. It's quite impressive, really, how few people it takes to totally ruin an otherwise entirely enjoyable experience. 

 

I hold the personal belief that everyone becomes overly self-conscious at some point in their lives, usually during their teen years (save a lucky few and perhaps some prevented by certain mental illnesses), and that this accompanied by a period of suicidal depression is almost a teen rite of passage of sorts. This is the time in which we become paranoid of our peers, not just aware of them, because we suddenly depend on their approval where we used not to care. This is the time where we start to read too much into signals we've only just begun to understand and assume because of them (often due to miscommunication) that no one cares - and we hate ourselves. We hate what this time has done to our awkward, unlikeable bodies and personalities.

 

You're annoying, so annoying that everyone has collectively agreed that it's obvious enough not even to have to bring up. Worse, you're invisible. No one likes you - actually. Literally. At the time in your life when you're most vulnerable to your peers, none of them can even stand you; they don't care. You aren’t valuable. You aren’t worth their time. No one holds the door open for you, no one blesses you when you sneeze, no one laughs at your jokes, no one decorates your locker on your birthday or sends you flowers on Valentine's day, no one wants you to be their partner for a project; no one wants you there at all; no one would mind if you just left. As a matter of fact, they'd be happy. Because you're just such a nuisance, and everyone hates you because you've taken too long to realize that; and worse, you're the only nuisance. You're the problem. Everything would just be better - no, perfect, if you left.

 

That's how I felt. And yet, somehow, I hadn't done it yet.

 

Oh, I had grown careless. I didn't wear my helmet, I was reckless when crossing the street, I scratched myself again and again on the tender undersides of my arms when I was bored and alone but I stopped before I drew blood because I didn't want anyone to notice and waste their time worrying about me and maybe I was horrified that I found myself doing it just to be able to feel something; I ate random berries I found on roadside bushes, not caring what they did to me. If no one else would care what happened, I thought, why should I?

 

I hadn't done it yet; I couldn't find the motivation. Maybe I just didn't want to waste the money and time my parents had put into my lucky childhood. Really, I hadn’t earned it; there were so many others who had awful upbringings they didn't deserve. Someone should have focused on them instead. It was wasted on me, I was sure of it. And even more so because I was feeling depressed; I was mad at myself for being mad at myself. I didn't have the right to. It was so ungrateful of me to not be able to enjoy myself, though I probably deserved it.

 

Whatever. I hadn't done it yet. But I wouldn't argue if it happened by itself. 

 

So that's where I'd been, teetering on the edge, for months now. School had ended for the year; it was late June, the SUUSI time of year. I'd just gotten back from a trip to Belize that I'd admittedly enjoyed, though I joked too much about dark, dark things in the desperate (needy, attention-seeking, I told myself) hope that someone would notice and tell me they cared. 

 

No one did.

 

I had climbed into the roof of our hotel and just stared at the ground for a while before finally going back inside, shaking. I had watched the sparkling water surrounding our motorboat too fixedly at times before I remembered my one true friend all the way back in Maryland- I didn't want a world without her, did I? She might blame herself and I didn't want to leave that behind. So I didn't do it; but that night, I still found myself writing after everyone else was asleep. I don’t remember what the poem said exactly because I tore it up months later out of shame; but you might be able to guess what it said.

 

I was too ashamed to ever let anyone else see it. All I remember was that I called it “The Little Things.” And that I planned to leave it as my final note.

 

So the trip to Belize ended and I was off to SUUSI just a few days after I got back. I hoped I would be able to enjoy myself. Who knew? It was and is a magical, one-of-a-kind place, community, experience, atmosphere. Yet I found myself doing worse than before.

 

Remember that bit from earlier about one or two things completely tainting an otherwise positive experience? Those things were mostly three people for me: their names were Brenton, Gigi, and Sadie. They were, undisputedly, the absolute worst. They were those popular kids who picked everyone else apart, who were nasty to everyone, who actually, no joke, sneered at you if you tried to talk to them. They tried to stay disconnected from the rest of the Thirteens (we’re sorted into classes by age group) so they could claim superiority. They didn't tell you anything bad with words, they said it with tone and body language and contemptuous eye contact before looking away in disgust. I made the mistake of letting them get to me.

 

Actually, I didn't respect their opinions or take them seriously. Who would listen to a person who stereotypes themselves so horribly, who thinks they're cool like that? No one. They weren't popular. They were the scum of the earth who thought they were cool, and none of the rest of us respected them, not even the adults. All they were was rude. So most of us figured out that it wasn’t worth our time to try to deal with them; if they wanted to be alone, let them. So it wasn’t them, themselves, that got to me; it was that I was afraid of becoming them. The wannabes, the tryhards. I didn’t “fit in” with the others, so they ignored me; but I knew that I would never become one of the Snob Squad. So I just existed, blown from place to place on the WCU campus. There were two people with whom I occasionally hung out, however: Polly and Bianca. Both outcasts as well. Polly's an old friend, but I’m not quite sure if we’ll still hang out in the future. I love her, of course, but sometimes she’s just so clueless; she can’t tell when she’s annoying and I don’t know how to tell her for fear of being rude. I’m afraid that I’m a Polly to my other friends and when I’m around her, I feel like I’m one of the fake people that I’ve always been so afraid to know.

 

Bianca was… A different story. I knew we would click the moment we first met eyes. Within one minute of her walking into the Thirteens classroom and meeting Polly and I for the first time, her head was on my lap like a cat’s and we were spilling all our secrets. We immediately knew that we would be comfortable with each other. And it was so…. Relieving. 

 

And yet I still felt the same. I love Bianca (in a philial way, of course), but she didn’t fix everything. I envied her for not caring what the others thought, but was too afraid to emulate her; I felt so, for lack of a better word, self-conscious around the others to begin with. They all seemed to fit together so well, none of them afraid to say anything; they were so bold, so fearless, so confident with one another. They were amazing. I wanted more than anything in the world to be part of their group. But then I would try to join in whatever they were doing and they would fall silent and just…. look at me. 

 

I would go back to my room and write.

 

It was one of those days, around the middle of the week, when I found myself lucky enough to have some free time between the afternoon activities and dinner. My little brother was watching Youtube in our room and I wanted to write about a fictional disease I’d just heard of, Hanahaki or something, so I decided to move somewhere with fewer distractions. I wandered aimlessly around the dormitories for a while, trying to find a nice peaceful place to pull out my journal and scrawl away, but the common rooms were all occupied. All the Thirteens were on the fourth floor, the Snobs in one common room and the Likeables in the other. I didn’t know where Bianca and Polly were, but... But the Likeables were all in one place playing a game together and maybe just maybe just maybe just maybe I could join them and maybe just maybe they wouldn’t mind and…. And a deep breath. Heart pounding. I clutched my spiral notebook tightly, rubbing my fingers against the rough cover and I could tell my hands were sweaty because they slipped over the textured surface too easily; and I opened the heavy door, opened my mouth to ask if I could join them and - 

 

And they all looked at me. 

 

I closed the door as fast as I could, mortified. Heart hammering. Who needed people anyway?

 

Useless.

 

After a few more minutes of looking, I found a beautiful balcony overlooking the campus where a gentle breeze played with two rocking chairs painted a peeling white. Peaceful. Tranquil. Bright flowers clung to the railing, the refreshing spot of color like an oasis in the otherwise dreary scape before me. One of the chairs was broken, but that was okay; the splintered leg seemed symbolic, almost picturesquely so, in my mind. It looked like the ending shot of a movie. I took a deep breath of the fresh summer air, sat down in the good chair, shifted about til I was finally comfortable, and began to write. 

 

\----

 

At first, it just seemed like normal.

 

The painful, yet blissful - constricting, yet rising - shrinking, yet swelling - tightening in my throat, in my chest.

 

That same ball of unspoken words and fumbled flirts that appears there whenever I think of you.

 

\- You, with your damned smile; you, with your ever-smiling eyes, with the smile always for someone else; you, with your glowing hair; you, so close, yet so far away.

 

And I was looking at you - you, you, YOU - when the feeling came. The raw, squeezing bitterness, tying my throat into knots - like usual, yet more. It was like I couldn’t breathe - beyond, of course, how you always take my breath away.

 

And then it happened. A single, solitary blossom escaped, expelled from my chest in a cough. Before I could think how or why, I’d caught it, its tender petals lying delicately in my imperfect hand. It was so beautiful, so like a jewel. How could something so wonderful have come from me, and now be held by something so mortal and undeserving as I?

 

And then the tightness swelled again, squeezing my throat once more until another cough, another flower - blue with silver-streaked petals - came; and another, and another. My hands were a fairy’s bouquet, a florist’s wildest dream. Blooms of every dewy hue seemed to glow like multi-colored coals, like dragon hearts, like phoenix eggs. Such was the myth that shrouded them, the surreality. It seemed an ancient legend being told - re-told - before my very eyes.

 

And then the beautiful, beautiful jewels - the dazzling emeralds, the ocean-deep-cut sapphires, the blood-red rubies, all impossibly refracting so much light with their glowing, glossy petals - began to turn to ash. To wilt, to die, to disintegrate, before my very eyes. One corner at a time. One flower, two flowers, four flowers, seven, ten, twenty - gone. Evaporated as if they’d never been. Like a dream. The tightness spat out one more - lily-white - and then let me alone.

 

I held it gingerly, in awe, with the care one would have for a robin’s egg, before my eyes refocused. Only one thing, as far as I was concerned, could be so beautiful as the pearly sheen of the miracle before me; and that thing was you. Standing nearby, laughing. Your bewitching, musical, waterfall laugh, for someone else, of course, echoing through my poor, defenseless skull; it mesmerized me. Ensnared me. Drew me towards you in a trance, each step tightening the squeezing in my throat, until I reached your side. Ten steps seemed fifty, and yet I could not reach you fast enough.

 

Without a thought, my arm lifted, as though by the string of a puppeteer; the flower brought before your holy gaze. And no matter how beautiful the petals were, they could not match your angel’s eyes.

 

A little, “oh!” and a smile - oh, that smile! That smile carried me on angelic wings, made my giddy steps like feather kisses as it carried me so high - as you took my humble offering, eyes twinkling stars; nay, brighter still.

 

And, like a dream, the moment passed. I was back within the safe confines of my chair -

Yet I saw, from afar - and yet, closeby - the flower tucked in your shining, silky hair.

 

Though happy (I thought), a nagging sprite remained to taint my thoughts -

I knew that, while my gift had pleased you fleetingly, still you loved me not.

The tightness suddenly came again, and came full-force, making me hack and hack again;

Hack out raining flowers so beautiful I knew they were not mine.

Again, again, they came and came, and I knew they were for you -

But I stayed behind, alone in shadow, content to see this through.

I didn’t deserve to bother you, to taint your happy day;

So I stayed and hacked and hacked, with tears of joy, glad that I was to stay.

The light began to fade in me as the flowers ceased to come;

I couldn’t breathe, air stuck half-way, as they clumped one by one.

My lungs were filled with beauty;

I fell, unnoticed, to the ground.

I was closer to you than I could ever hope to deserve;

Flowers spilling out, I closed my eyes and heart and throat, my conscience sound.

 

\---

 

I finished. Reread it again and again until I almost knew it by heart, tweaking bits here and there. Lay to lie. A few typos. The care one would have for a robin's egg? Weak wording. The care one would harbor towards a robin's fragile paper egg, ten times better. I didn't know what to think about the piece - probably mediocre at best. I'd need someone else's opinion. Hopefully they wouldn't think there was too much purple prose, or that it was weird to switch to couplets halfway through. I wanted to find someone to share it with. But who - 

 

The balcony door opened suddenly, prompting me to immediately snap my journal shut and stand up in a defensive position as if to guard my chair. Who the - 

 

"....Oh. Hi, dad."

 

"Writing again, huh?" he chuckles. "The others - " 

 

"They're playing a game together, thanks, I know," I snap. 

 

He gives me a weird look.

 

"They're.... At community time." Oh. Duh, he meant the rest of my family. Community time is a daily stretch of time right before dinner where a whole ton of activities are set up in the middle of the campus by the big fountain, from slip 'n slides to dunk tanks to chalk to art for sale to buckets full of oobleck, which is a mixture of cornstarch mixed and water (it ends up as a non-Newtonian fluid that's fun to mess around with). Kids are also allowed to play in the fountain. I haven't really gone much this year since I have no one to go with; except when they have oobleck. Oobleck is the greatest and I’m willing to go alone for it (let me be a kid, dangit). "Are you going to come with us?" he asks.

 

I squirm. "Not this time, sorry." I hold up the still-shut notebook. "I just wrote something and I want to run it through my friends for feedback." I don’t spare him even a moment’s glance at the precious sheaf of paper.

 

He makes a little sound of understanding and nods, opens the door to go back in. "Have fun with that!" And he's gone.

 

One of the things I love about my dad is that he understands those sorts of things. I'm generally about as extroverted as they come, but he knows that the constant social interaction of SUUSI is taking its toll even on me and that I need my time to recharge. It's made worse because I'm rooming with my parents and little brother, meaning I that can never escape all the people, and because most of my interactions are with my peers, with whom I can never seem to get along as well as I do with adults, which is an endless source of frustration for me. My parents tell me it's because I'm gifted but that doesn't help too much. Peers are just naturally more important to a teen and there’s nothing to be done about that.

 

I don't want to awkwardly just follow my dad inside, so I decide to hang out on the balcony for a while longer. It's pleasant with the warmth of the sun making my skin feel aglow, while the breeze refreshes me. There's no hurry to go anywhere.

 

So I wait. It's nice. I can hear the joyous echoes of community time from halfway across campus.

 

And then the door interrupts it and I hear a familiar voice chirp, 

 

"Hey, Rose! There you are!"

 

"Hey, Bianca," I smile. Polly's right behind her. "Hey, Polly." There's silence for a moment; a beat in the script. It goes on for just barely too long and I can tell that Bianca’s beginning to peer at the single page sticking out of my notebook. No one knows what to say. "So, uh... I just wrote a thing if you want to hear it?" I ask awkwardly to break the deafening silence, rubbing the back of my neck and cringing inwardly. What else am I supposed to say? "It's like sort of a story and then it turns into a poem, I mean, everything just sort of started rhyming, so I just...." She's already nodding eagerly. "Eum, okay then! Heh." I clear my throat, shaking out the leaf of paper. My handwriting is messy and hard to read. This is the first time anyone else is going to hear this story.

 

Well, no point holding back; I dive right in, adding inflection and emphasis in as many places as I can, like a Shakespearean actor. I thought I might have been overdoing it at the time but, to my surprise, I could see my friends' eyes grow round as saucers. I could have sworn I saw stars in them by the time I finished with a tearful in-character sigh, letting the arms holding the precious sheet of paper drift down to my waist in defeat. There's a moment of tense silence suspended in the air, my voice echoing through it, before Bianca sharply intakes a breath of air. And the next thing I know, both of them are hugging me and telling me it's amazing and saying I have a real talent and I just stand there in shock, my mind utterly blank. When I finally come to my senses and my mind stops droning "whuuuuut," I take a breath and eloquently ask them both,

 

"Wut."

 

"It's amazing! It's fantastic!" Bianca exclaims, actually jumping around on the balcony. She's like that. "What the hecking heck, Rose, you never told me you had that kind of talent!"

 

Wut.

 

"Really?" I ask, not in an attempt to be modest, but because I genuinely can't believe she thought it was so good. "I - "

 

"Yeah, Rose!" Polly seconds, eyes shining. "You should share that at the coffee house on Friday!"

 

I blink in surprise. 

 

"You guys really thought it was that good? You're not playing me or anything?" In case you hadn't picked up on this yet, I'm paranoid.

 

"Of course we're not! You need to share this with the world!" 

 

I didn't think it was that good, but if it made them happy....

 

I thanked them both sincerely before asking them to join me at my dorm later to walk to dinner together. I had some edits to make.

\- - -

I spent so much time reading and editing and re-reading and re-editing that damn poem over the next few days, I swear I should have been so sick of it; but, strangely, I wasn't. Who knew? Maybe it actually wasn't that bad. Maybe Bianca and Polly weren't just trying to make me feel better or weren't just easily impressed, if I could still feel somewhat proud of it after so long.

 

Then came Friday, the big test for my child (that's what it seemed like Hanahaki was at this point). We had no afternoon activities because of the Youth and Middler closing circles and the coming-of-age ceremony, followed by the end-of-week show put on by the teen dorm and then the trip to Cache, the youth club. Perhaps I should clarify: Serendipity is the adult club where everyone over 21 can go to party, drink, and socialize. Cache is for the teens and YAs who aren't old enough for Serendipity yet. As part of our coming-of-age, all the Thirteens are partying til midnight tonight with only fourteen-to-twenty-one-year-olds for supervision. Seems like a good idea, right? 

 

But before of all that was the Thirteen coffee house, the group of us in the classroom together and having our own mini talent show just for each other. I was going to share the poem. 

 

I practically knew it by heart.

 

I was hyperaware of the little square of paper, folded over three or four times, that I had so slaved over, tucked into my back pocket. I had spent over an hour during afternoon activities the day before copying the final draft over onto a new piece of paper with cleaner handwriting (there wasn’t much I could do all by myself, and no way was I butting into someone else’s pre-established group, so I just sat in the corner and painstakingly transferred the whole thing onto the new sheet); and then I saw one more change I should make and just scrawled it in the margins. C’est la vie. And then I’d shown it to Arber, who was my counselor when I was in the Elevens group; they thought it was good. No specific details, though, which wasn’t exactly reassuring.

 

The counselors are using the “micro-foam” I brought in today for the coffee house. It comforts me, adds a sense of familiarity and home ground to the little room. Still, my heart beats faster and faster with each person who’s called up.

 

Luke (the one with the cool, square-pupiled eyes) and Tony (underappreciated sweetheart, dreamboat, and ideal future husband) tell some jokes.

 

Next announcement; my heart bangs against my chest like a bird trying to fly free; Miranda. I relax slightly. She’s singing Still Alive from Portal 2. She does alright, I guess. 

 

Hammering against my ribcage - Bianca shows the class a beautiful drawing. I give her a high-five as she sits down. My heart is going too fast, it seems. I feel giddy.

 

And then my name is called and it stops for a second. Everyone looks at me. Expectant. 

 

I’m not ready.

 

I gulp, standing up as steadily as possible. One of the counselors hands me the foam microphone. No, no, no, I can do this. 

 

Now that I think about it, I never really doubted that I could. 

 

I look at them all, expectant and waiting, and I don’t know what to think. So I take a deep breath.

 

And I share the story.

 

And they all stay quiet and listen; well, Brenton, Gigi, and Sadie just look bored but honestly who cares about them.

 

Breathless silence. I’m shaking. My heart stops for another moment.

 

And... There’s no applause for me like there was for the others until the counselors prompt them to start clapping. Everyone’s too far away for me to see their faces as I sit down. I can’t tell if Tony is looking at me or not. All I can hope is that the momentary silence after my sharing was from awe or something, but I doubt it. One of the worst feelings you can feel is when a teacher has to prompt the others to clap.

 

A few other kids share. I feel like a failure for the rest of the day.

 

I stuck my neck out and I failed. I trusted my friends when they told me I had a talent - apparently they were wrong. That had been the one thing I thought had going for me, the one use, for lack of a better word, that I had had (aside from singing, but everyone was so annoyed with that already). And I guess I was wrong. 

 

After morning programming, I went straight to the dorm to sulk; I’d get lunch later. But one of my classmates stopped me on the stairwell. Maybe she saw the look on my face, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think I would see that more clearly. She just seemed a little… Awkward? Fidgeting. 

 

That’s weird; I thought I was the only person in the world who could be awkward.

 

“Hey, uhm - Rose.” She paused before saying my name. She knew it, of course, we’d been friends for years, but we’d been talking less lately and maybe that was why she was hesitant. 

 

I wait.

 

“That poem you shared? It was… It was really good.” Wut. “Like, really good. You could publish stuff. I mean,” she starts talking faster, looking like she wants to gesture but keeping her hands clasped in front of herself, “I’ve won poetry contests before and my stuff isn’t nearly as good as that…. Go places.” She looks at me, nervous, slightly out of breath. 

 

I’m frozen on the stairwell for a moment, shocked. She’s taller than me, usually, but we’re exactly the same height now, me being two steps above the landing where she’s standing.

For someone to tell me that - a peer, nonetheless! - meant that whatever people saw in my writing must have been noticeable enough for one person to comment on; so surely there must have been a score of others who saw as well but never said anything.

 

Then I turn and look her in the eye, smile sincerely, and tell her, “Thanks.” She smiles back. “It means a lot.” I’m not sure she had any idea how sincere that was; I’m not sure if she’ll ever find out. But suddenly that negative taint was gone, stripped away like a dark, dreary veil to reveal all the happy memories I’d had at SUUSI. They weren’t invalid anymore. They were right there; how had I forgotten them? I knew I didn’t enjoy feeling bad for myself, so how had such a gray, loveless illusion of the world pushed the real one away for so long? I had been so foolish, hadn’t I?

 

We both went along with our days.

 

When I show people my Hanahaki poem, I often tell them that it’s the poem that saved my life. I don’t think they know why I say that, but they don’t ask; and that doesn’t matter to me. That little story meant so much to me and still does. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

 

Of course, there wasn’t a happy, perfect ending to any of this; those don’t exist. I never sat down with the other Thirteens and talked everything through, but at dinner that night I sat with a group of my brother’s teen dorm friends, all of whom I’ll be rubbing shoulders with next year, and felt right at home. I thought about that a lot at night when I was feeling lonely and hopeless.

 

I never explained to the Snobs why everyone hated them and how they could change for the better, but I could tell by the looks on their faces that night at the ceremony that they regretted a few things. I was having a conversation with one of the counselors later and she said it seemed clear to her that they were jealous of how comfortable I was in my own skin. I think about that a lot when I find myself thinking about how awkward and unlikeable everyone must view me as.

 

Tony walked with me on the way to the show and told me that my singing voice sounded like that of Thomas Sanders, one of my idols. I nearly imploded. When we arrived, I silently begged for Luke to switch seats with me so I could sit next to Tony, and he agreed (after a bit of snickering). I thought about the look on Luke’s face a lot. But I also think, when I feel like there’s no love for me in this world, of how giddy I felt when Tony brushed his leg against mine and of how we whispered together in the audience.

 

Some of the teens that hung out with us that night told me that I should be in next year’s TWOB (Teens Way Off Broadway) performance. Trust me when I tell you that I had already thought about that a lot. And at the party later on, I talked with the rest of the Thirteens and with the older kids about random things. Just light conversation; I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember feeling relieved when I didn’t get that look. I think about that a lot when I feel like I’m unable to talk to anyone naturally.

 

I remember sitting with Tony as we waited for the curtain to rise, knowing that it would be an agonizing year before I saw him next; I remember the notecards our counselors passed around where we were supposed to write notes for each person. One of the things someone wrote on mine was “casually creative.” That stuck with me and I think about it a lot when I feel useless. 

 

At the first swim practice I attended after I got back, my friend Angelica - she’s very depressed and I worry about her a lot - showed me a message she wrote on the team message board while I was gone about how she really cared about me; then told me sheepishly that me being alive is the reason she hasn’t killed herself yet. And I think about that a lot.

 

I’ve noticed that people don’t compliment each other enough; since I got better, I’ve tried to do it myself as much as I can. People don’t think other people need them and that’s a problem. 

 

I’ve realized that communication is important, that the wrong tone of voice or a single misplaced word can mean so many worlds to someone else, so clarity is always of the utmost importance to keep in mind. I think about that a lot and I do my best to improve communication wherever I go.

 

I’ve gotten better. I’ve gotten good enough to try to help others feel better, the best that I can. I try to do things for people that mean a lot to them and would have meant a lot to me if anyone had done them for me at the time. And I don’t feel like I’m alone, sinking in silence, anymore.

 

Here’s what I’d say about SUUSI 2017: It meant a lot. To me, anyway.


End file.
